THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140375
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
They sat stoically at their desks during eight-hour shifts. One hand worked a bulky, adding-machine-like contraption, while the other plotted data on paper with pencil or pen.
A half-century ago, these ``human computers'' were critical to the efforts of engineers at Langley Research Center in Hampton. But a new machine was poised to forever change the work of NASA's aerospace scientists.
``They didn't say `human computers' because they didn't have any other kind then,'' said Portsmouth native Betty Toll, who began work as a Langley computer in November 1941. ``In the beginning, the work was very tedious. It was very difficult to master the machine.''
It would take time, but math major Toll and her computational colleagues would be supplanted by the world's first electronic computer. ENIAC - otherwise known as the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer - today celebrates its 50th anniversary.
``Everything we know about computers today followed from that one device,'' said William A. Wulf, AT&T professor of engineering and applied science at the University of Virginia. Wulf will deliver the keynote address at tonight's official ENIAC birthday observance in Philadelphia.
``The key was that it was completely electronic. We never went back to building electromechanical computers after that.''
In ENIAC's day, no one foretold the invention of transistors and the integrated circuits that would eventually shrink essential computing components to thumbnail size and smaller. Nor did prognosticators predict the advent of the personal computer, itself barely 20 years old.
Gaming software, CD-ROMs, Pentium chips and fax-modems were unknown. No one worried about program upgrades or computer viruses.
``There's a quote from a 1949 issue of Popular Mechanics that I absolutely love,'' Wulf said. ``In effect, they say: ENIAC has 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons. But computers of the future will be far smaller; they'll have 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1,000 tons.
It graphically illustrates to me how poor we've been in predicting trends in technology.''
ENIAC itself wasn't completed in time for the original purpose of calculating firing tables for World War II artillery.
Instead, number crunching was the first real task for the 150-foot-wide contraption studded with 20 banks of flashing lights.
Post-war scientists yearned to better understand thermonuclear chain reactions; in particular, those necessary to detonate the yet-to-be-built hydrogen bomb.
At Langley, meantime, and extending into the 1960s, aerodynamics engineers still relied on biological brainpower. Taking raw wind-tunnel information and plugging it in to a variety of complex formulas, human computers made it possible for researchers working in Hampton to improve basic designs for, first, airplanes and, later, model spacecraft.
``Before the arrival of the big electronic brains, the only way to process data was to do time-consuming computation by hand,'' said James R. Hansen, an Auburn University history professor who has written two books on Langley. ``Human computers were an absolute necessity, part of Langley's engineering analysis.''
For U.Va.'s Wulf, ENIAC's birthday is a reminder of just how much present-day computer structure - including operating systems and general software, central processing units, and built-in calculators - is due to the scientists and engineers who conceived and constructed the massive machine.
``The real lesson of the last 50 years is that this technology has advanced so rapidly and is so useful in so many different ways,'' he said. ``We keep pushing the limits of that technology. Every one of the predictions that we'll run out of steam, that we'll hit some limit, has proved not to be true.''
Former computer Toll and her husband, Thomas, a retired Langley engineer, plan no special celebration to mark the ENIAC anniversary.
Their party came several years ago when, in 1992, the couple bought a personal computer to commemorate their 50th wedding anniversary.
Now, every Saturday morning, the pair correspond electronically with daughters in California and Roanoke via a national on-line service from their Newport News home.
``I'm just constantly amazed at what can be done with computers,'' Betty said.
``I think they're unbelievable. I'm inclined to say almost anything could happen.''
MEMO: A working ENIAC model is on display in the Moore School building at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
ILLUSTRATION: B\W photo
For the first time, electronic pulses replaced mechanized switches
and punched cards in a machine built by IBM.
by CNB